The invention is related to an accumulating conveyor system and in particular to an improved carrier assembly and delatching dog therefor.
In a typical conventional accumulating conveyor system, a pallet extends laterally across a rail of the conveyor by means of a carrier assembly. The conveyor system has a latching device that automatically picks up the first pallet in the series of accumulating pallets for movement along the conveyor path. A typical latching device has a delatching dog that actuates to either bypass a pallet or to latch onto the pallet for movement along the carrier path. The delatching dog is biased in a vertically down position by means of gravity. As a result of the gravitational bias of the delatching dog conventional accumulating conveyors have to maintain an essentially horizontal conveying path. This limits the potential route of the conveyor system. It is the intent of this invention to address this shortcoming of existing accumulating conveyor systems.
The invention provides for an accumulating conveyor system having a conveyor path, wherein the accumulating conveyor system includes a triple rail system suspended above the ground and having a pair of outside rails and a center rail in parallel formation. The center rail has a drive chain connected thereto. A pallet beam having a carrier assembly is slidingly connectable to the outside rails. A plurality of delatching dogs are carried by the drive chain and latch onto the carrier assembly of the pallet beam to move the pallet beam over the rail system. The configurations of the carrier assembly and the delatching dogs are particularly advantages to function although the rail system may extend in any angle relative to the ground.
The delatching dog includes a front and rear pivotal member wherein the front pivotal member pivots toward the center rail upon initial engagement with the carrier assembly. The rear pivotal member has a portion communicating with a portion of the front pivotal member so that the rear pivotal member moves with the pivotal movement of the front pivotal member. The rear pivotal member also has a spring mechanism which biases the rear pivotal member away from the center rail when the delatching dog is in its normal, biased position for engagement with the carrier assembly.
The spring mechanism and the configuration of the delatching dog as well as the configuration of the carrier assembly provides an improvement over the prior accumulating conveyor systems. The spring mechanism maintains that the pivotal members in their biased positions remain engaged with a carrier assembly regardless of the direction or orientation relative to the ground of the conveyor path. Only an encounter with another carrier assembly or a stop mechanism will disengage the delatching dog from the engaged carrier assembly.